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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28794297">The More Ardent</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/regshoe/pseuds/regshoe'>regshoe</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Raffles - E. W. Hornung</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Carmilla (J. Sheridan Le Fanu) Fusion, M/M, Vampires</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 08:47:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,841</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28794297</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/regshoe/pseuds/regshoe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Bunny Manders meets his old friend A. J. Raffles again after many years. But Raffles has a dark secret—no, another one...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bunny Manders/A. J. Raffles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The More Ardent</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thanks to thechestofsilver for encouraging me to finish this!</p><p>This fic takes place in the universe of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's <i>Carmilla</i>, but you don't need to have read that book to follow it—just 'it's a vampire AU' will do fine. (It's highly recommend if you haven't, however—I think it's likely to appeal to Raffles fans...)</p><p>Contains references to (what appears to be, but isn't really) a disease epidemic.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <i>Of the great new London cemeteries of the nineteenth century, this was one of the finest. A double avenue of trees—tall, stately limes, now almost bare of their yellow leaves, shadowed by pines—ran down the long central drive towards the chapel which stood, columned and domed like a classical temple, at the southeastern end. Beneath the trees of the avenue were mausoleums, some of these quite grand affairs ornamented with intricate spires, arches and tracery and watched over by solemn stone angels; and row upon row of less elaborate graves, stretching on into that grassy distance which was finally limited by the reappearance above it of the rooftops of living London.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>In one obscure corner, beneath the shelter of a patch of elder bushes, stood a grave of plain dark stone. There was little ornament here; only a name, not a famous one, and dates, which indicated only that the occupant had died sadly young.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>It was dusk, and the great trees of the avenue, the little elders bending over this graze and the grass that grew upon it were all equally silent. There was no one about—save a fox which trotted down a nearby gravelled pathway, heading out for a night's hunting.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>All at once the fox stopped and turned its head, suddenly alert.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>A patch of earth upon the grave, still as everything else a moment earlier, had begun to move.</i>
</p><p>*</p><p>'Ah, Bunny Manders! You remember me—yes, of course—dear me, how long it has been. Well, old fellow, I've got into a spot of difficulty, but I knew as soon as I saw your name that you would help me.'</p><p>'Raffles—of course! Come on in,' I said.</p><p>It was a bleak, grey November afternoon. A half-hearted rain had been falling all day, never rising to the level of an actual downpour but continuing in a constant, chilling dampness. Fog crept like a living being down the streets and pooled in courtyards and gardens, obscuring what daylight there was, blotting out everything but the very nearest objects. From my own windows all beyond the housetops on the other side of Mount Street had become as mysterious and gloomy as the hills of Transylvania. In short, it was a day for staying indoors and warming oneself before the fire while one read one's favourite novel—as I had been doing before Raffles arrived.</p><p>He had, he explained after I had ushered him to an armchair and provided us both with drinks, suffered a minor accident involving a hansom cab which had been driving along the street at a pace elevated from reckless to really dangerous by the fog. Fortunately he was not badly hurt; but, realising that he would be unable to walk back to his own rooms, he had taken the lift up to my flat in search of refuge. I gave him what help I could, which consisted chiefly of pouring him more brandy and placing more coals upon the fire; but it seemed, after all, that he was only a little shaken, and within a short while we had fallen to happy reminiscences of the old days.</p><p>'What a coincidence that you should happen upon this very building!' I said.</p><p>'Oh, indeed. Such a trivial little thing, to bring us together again, after—it must be ten years, surely.'</p><p>I nodded. 'But I am glad that it has,' I said. 'I always meant to look you up some day, but I have heard so little of you—come, tell me what you have been doing these ten years.'</p><p>'You would not have found me, had you tried it much sooner than this,' replied Raffles with a smile. 'I have been far away from London—travelling.' But he seemed reluctant to volunteer any more details. Instead he questioned me closely as to my own recent activities, and I told him quite frankly all about them: the fortune, my life in town, my current rather precarious financial situation, my attempts at keeping the wolf from the door by my pen... He listened intently to everything I said, with a peculiar fixed gaze that was like and yet somehow unlike the look I remembered from our schooldays. He had changed remarkably little; ten years, and his dearly remembered face bore no unfamiliar lines, his black curls tumbled over his head just as they had always done, every inflection of his voice was just as I had known it. I thought so, and yet again had the indefinable impression that something about his look was not quite what it should be.</p><p>'Well,' he said at last—we had been talking for hours, and it was now late enough that soon the perils of the dark would be added to those of the fog—'I believe I am equal by now to the walk back to the Albany. Do come and call on me there some time—it's been marvellous seeing you again, Bunny.' So saying, he smiled at me once more—just his own old look—then took up his hat and overcoat and left.</p><p>*</p><p>This apparition out of the past seemed all of a piece with the strange, unreal gloom of that foggy day, and afterwards I was left half wondering if it had really been my old schoolfellow Raffles, and not some ghost or mirage. But ghost he was not, and I was to see a great deal more of him over the following weeks and months. He would turn up at my door at odd times of the day and night, and we would sit together in my rooms and talk for hours about all manner of things over whisky and cigarettes. Or he would insist upon treating me to dinner, always in elaborate style at establishments rather beyond what I would have dared upon my own purse at that delicate period. If it was light out when he arrived (which was not often, and that only partly due to the brief daylight of December) we would go for long walks through the streets of Mayfair and Kensington or across Hyde Park, arm in arm, and he would enliven the outing by telling me all sorts of stories: anecdotes about his acquaintances, tales of obscure and surprising corners of London history, sometimes foreign folk tales—from Austria, Poland, Hungary and such places—which I supposed he had picked up on his travels.</p><p>In short, he seemed flatteringly keen to have more of my company, and to turn our chance meeting into a regular friendship; and I, whose regard for him during our earlier period of association had never been exactly rational or calm, took every opportunity to grant this wish. His manner became warmer and more affectionate with every meeting, and he continued to use the old nickname by which my schoolfellows had once called me, which was not without its effect upon my feelings. I did not ask him how he had come to know such a wide and surprising range of things about history and folklore; there was little room in my heart for such ungrateful curiosity when he was speaking to me or smiling at me.</p><p>Nor did I inquire about certain other details of his life which gradually became clear to me at this time. His rooms at the Albany, where he often invited me, were full of exquisite ornaments, jewellery and plate, artworks and many other beautiful objects. He was not miserly about these riches, but was eager both to show them to me and to share them; he would often make me lavish presents of silver cigarette-cases and such things. I had no notion how he managed to sustain such a lifestyle, for he had no clear means of support. But, as with everything else, I had no mind to probe into this question.</p><p>It was about this time that London began to be afflicted by a mysterious plague. It was not like those foul epidemics of cholera, typhus and such diseases which may rage through the slums of a great city in any year; the victims were relatively few, came from all stations of life and had no obvious connections to one another. People sickened and died apparently at random, and always suddenly. There were several curious features: I say all sorts of people were struck down, and indeed they were, but one thing they did seem to have in common: they were all young and all beautiful. And they all died.</p><p>The symptoms corresponded to those of no known disease; medical science was mystified, and speculation ran rampant in the press as to the possible causes and nature of the plague. Indeed, I contributed a little piece myself, on the sad case of Mr Henry Redruth, a happy and generally-liked young gentleman possessed of a rumoured fortune and certain bright prospects in his career at the Foreign Office, struck down in the midst of his promise. In fact, this particular case was of the greater interest to me because I knew the poor fellow had been an acquaintance of Raffles's.</p><p>'Yes, it's all very mysterious, isn't it?' said Raffles, when I—delicately enough—pressed him for more information. 'I was sorry to hear about poor Redruth.'</p><p>But he said little more than that. Perhaps it was natural of him not to want to; but he seemed almost bored, rather than grieved, by the subject, and soon drew the conversation instead onto another of his beloved ornaments, a little ring which, he said, had recently come into his possession. It was of gold, patterned with a tiny, intricate design in black enamel and set with a deep and gleaming garnet.</p><p>Raffles's fingers brushed against mine as he handed it to me, the stone glittering like a tiny red eye beneath the bright electric lights of his rooms, and his smile was not less vivid than it. 'Isn't it lovely, Bunny?' he said, in that low, almost hypnotic voice which he would sometimes use when speaking to me of such things.</p><p>'Yes,' I said, turning it over, and with an effort drawing my gaze away from his eyes for long enough to inspect the thing properly. 'But, Raffles, look at this!' I said when I had done so. For it was a memorial ring, and inside the gold band was inscribed the name of the person whose life and death it must have been made to commemorate—<i>R. F. Redruth, 1750-1827</i>. 'Surely,' I went on, 'this once belonged to Henry Redruth's family. You didn't say so.' And I looked at him in amazement.</p><p>'Oh, the young man you are writing a piece about! Yes, I believe it was his—an heirloom, I suppose. It must certainly have been amongst his possessions.'</p><p>'And he had to sell it, and it ended up coming to you.' This seemed the most likely theory. Perhaps Mr Redruth's fortunes had not been so comfortable as was generally supposed after all.</p><p>'Yes, what a strange thing.' Raffles took the ring back from me and regarded it meditatively, turning it over so that the light upon the garnet was never still. 'Yes, he must have inherited it—this R. F. was his great-great-grandfather or some such thing. He cared little for it himself, but it was, as it were, in the blood... and now it is mine.'</p><p>He turned and smiled at me as he spoke these last words. The look was his very own, as bright and as beautiful as were all the smiles with which he favoured me; and yet at the same time there was in the gleam of his blue eyes and the set of his strong mouth something horrible, something unnatural—something which suited his uncanny words better than I cared to understand. I did not know what to say; I scarcely knew what I felt.</p><p>But in a moment he was back to his usual self, the Raffles I knew and loved so well, and the other look was entirely gone from him. 'Oh, don't look so glum, Bunny,' he said. 'It was a terrible shame what happened to the fellow, of course. And I shall say no more about this trinket, if it troubles my dear rabbit to hear such things. I dare say you want your mind taking off such morbid subjects, after writing about them all day to earn your bread.'</p><p>And, for the rest of that evening, he talked only of what he thought would please me better: politics, harmless gossip about our mutual acquaintances, a particularly lovely view of the trees in Kensington Gardens by which he had been struck earlier that day, and so on. I did not think about the Redruth ring again.</p><p>*</p><p>
  <i>It was a large window, looking out over the moonlit scene of a better garden than most London houses can boast. The bright, pale light showed in clear but uncanny form the outlines of flowerbeds, summerhouses and cypress trees. The lower sash of the window was raised a little, and and in the gap between the white curtains the moonlight came in with the night air as though they were one substance, illuminating together the regular and tastefully-chosen furnishings of the room. At the far side, upon a little dressing-table, something glittered. But the person who lay asleep in the bed cannot have been much troubled by the light, for all within the room was quite still and undisturbed.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Hours passed. The moon sailed on its way across the sky, and presently its light fell full upon the face of the sleeper, who stirred fitfully. The rest of the room was no longer so still, either; the calm air of earlier in the night had turned into a restless breeze, and the curtains swayed back and forth, the fine cloth making a curious whispering sound as it moved.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Then several things happened in quick succession. There was a louder, sharper noise at the window, and the sash was raised higher. The breeze, allowed now to pass unrestricted into the room, rose to a gust, and the curtains billowed out like the sails of a ship in a high wind upon the open sea. But the moonlight was cut off by a dark shadow.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>And the sleeper awoke—and looked at once towards the window, and saw what stood there, silhouetted against the silver light.</i>
</p><p>*</p><p>It must have been a month or so after the Henry Redruth affair—I remember it was one of those February days when the world is beginning to look a little brighter—when I went round to the Albany to keep an appointment with Raffles. The mood of the day, with its mild but persistent sunlight, was working upon my heart, and I felt lighter and freer of cares than I had been in some time.</p><p>This happy mood was not to last, however. When I arrived at Raffles's door I found it standing open, and from the room inside came the voices of three men—Raffles, and two I did not know.</p><p>'Really, I think it's quite—Bunny, is that you?' Raffles appeared as he spoke in the doorway of his sitting-room. His tone was suddenly very different from what it had been when I half-overheard him from outside. He took my hand and all but dragged me into the room, saying, 'Come on in, my dear fellow—no need to mind these chaps. We're merely discussing business.' And he gave the two men, who were standing one on either side of the fireplace, a look which suggested it was something rather less pleasant than that.</p><p>'Now, Mr Raffles—' began one of the men. He was a tall, grizzled fellow, and spoke with a pronounced Scotch accent.</p><p>'Of course, Inspector, I ought to make the introductions. This is my dear friend Mr Manders—Bunny, this is Inspector Mackenzie of Scotland Yard. He and his colleague here have been asking me a few little questions about an affair they want cleared up. A tiresome thing, really, but'—he clapped his hand on my shoulder—'it has just occurred to me that you might be able to help them.' He beamed round at us three, as if the inspector were confronted with some tricky problem which Raffles had just very neatly solved for him. The inspector did not seem to agree.</p><p>I stood behind one of Raffles's armchairs, resting my hands upon its back for support. It goes without saying that a scene like this had not figured in my expectations of the day.</p><p>'Now, Inspector,' said Raffles, clapping his hands together in a businesslike manner. 'You wanted to know—where I was on the night of the seventeenth, is that right?'</p><p>Inspector Mackenzie looked at me. 'That is right,' he said.</p><p>'Well, Bunny here can tell you all about it—since, as I have said, I was dining with him at the club, wasn't I, Bunny?'</p><p>I thought back to the night in question; my memory was a little hazy. 'Yes—yes, that's right,' I said. I did not like where this was leading.</p><p>'And at what time did you and Mr Raffles part company on the night in question, Mr Manders?' asked the inspector.</p><p>I frowned, still thinking.</p><p>'Oh, not till very late—one should say very early, rather,' said Raffles. 'I believe we returned to Bunny's rooms, which are in Mount Street, and talked the moon down across the sky over whisky and Sullivans until about, oh, four o' clock, I should say. I regret to admit, Inspector, to such irregular habits. Doubtless you recommend a healthy regimen of early nights and early mornings, but—'</p><p>'I asked Mr Manders,' put in the inspector sharply.</p><p>I tried to think quickly. Certainly we had dined at the club on the seventeenth, and I believed I did remember going back to Mount Street afterwards. Had Raffles been with me? I could not say. My recollection was curiously blurred—as, indeed, the experiences and memories of not a few days and nights were, at that time...</p><p>'Come on, Bunny, tell the man what he wants to know,' said Raffles jovially, flinging his arm round my shoulders and smiling broadly in the face of another glare from Mackenzie.</p><p>My memory was becoming no clearer. But what was perfectly clear was that Raffles needed my help; and so, pushing to the back of my mind thoughts of just why Inspector Mackenzie wanted to know this of Raffles, I said, 'Certainly—I remember it perfectly. It was about four o' clock when Raffles left Mount Street to return to his own rooms, just as he says.'</p><p>Inspector Mackenzie looked at me for a long time, while his silent colleague scribbled in a notebook. That he was unimpressed by my answer could scarcely have been plainer, but he apparently considered himself obliged to accept it. A few more questions, and a few more hastily 'remembered' details, passed between us; and then the inspector thanked Raffles and me for our time and left us, taking his scribal colleague with him.</p><p>It may be imagined what the state of my feelings was at the end of this interview. Of course I wanted nothing but to ask Raffles to explain the absurd and incredible scene, and I lost very little time in doing so.</p><p>'There was,' he said, as we sat on the sofa together, Raffles having firmly shut the door behind the retreating policemen, 'a burglary in St John's Wood on the night of the seventeenth—a very commonplace sort of affair, I believe; I don't concern myself with the details of such sordid things—and our dear Inspector has somehow got it into his head that I had some connection with the crime. I have convinced them well enough that I did not; and there, I hope, shall be an end of it.'</p><p>'But, Raffles, why on earth—'</p><p>'And you,' he went on, ignoring my half-finished question, 'were vital to the effort! Oh, Bunny, you always had such tremendous pluck, and I know you shall always stick up for me in the face of such absurd enmities as this. I cannot thank you enough for turning up so fortuitously and dismissing the inspector's questioning so neatly as you did.'</p><p>This flattery, which was elaborated at a little more length, had its usual effect upon my feelings; and, within a while, we had dropped the subject, and I heard no more from Raffles about Inspector Mackenzie and his oddly baseless suspicions.</p><p>But it was not the last time I heard about St John's Wood on the night of the seventeenth. Reading the newspaper that next Sunday, I happened to glance over a list of victims of the unexplained epidemic which was still going on. One of them was a lady who had died in that neighbourhood on that very night. Well, London is a large and busy metropolis, and many things can happen at the same time and in nearly the same place; but it was an odd coincidence, all the same.</p><p>*</p><p>This affair was only one of various incidents which led me to suspect—without any definite form, and below the level of deliberate thought at first—that Raffles might not be coming by all his lovely things in an entirely honest way.</p><p>I was becoming strangely suggestible, and sometimes these vague misgivings would present me with some really horrible surmise. I would think of Raffles, for a moment, in quite another way from how I was accustomed to think of him... But then he would take my arm in the street, or smile at me in the starlight beside the Albany windows, or call me his dear Bunny, and then I could no more think evil of him than I could fly.</p><p>And, besides, in my clearer moments it often seemed that there was little ground for any kind of suspicion, after all. The late hours he kept, for instance, were nothing unusual for such a well-to-do young man about town as he apparently was. When he called on me at Mount Street it was generally in the evening, and we would often sit up together much of the night (as I supposed we must have done upon the seventeenth of February). In his conversation then there was nothing of the unnerving, strange note which I have described elsewhere, and I could imagine that he was always like this, beautiful and shining and belonging entirely to a world I could see and understand. I never saw him before the afternoon. Once or twice I called at the Albany in the morning, about ten or eleven, and could never get any sight of him.</p><p>After one such unsuccessful visit I happened to strike up a conversation with the porter on duty at the Piccadilly entrance. 'Oh no, sir, Mr Raffles never appears before midday,' he said with a good-natured laugh. 'And when he comes back here in the evening, as often as not it's to go out again, and never appear after that till near dawn, or the next day even. No, I don't know where he goes—well, I wouldn't pry, you know, sir. Though they are eccentric habits, it's not my place to criticise.'</p><p>When he came back here in the evening? Something cold seemed to strike at my heart at those words; for I realised that the man was describing Raffles's returns from those very nights at Mount Street, or from our outings together to restaurants or the theatre. I had never supposed that he went anywhere but back to his own rooms; and where did he go, if he did not stop there? But I pushed the suspicion—if, indeed, it was definite enough to deserve the name—away. I could allow Raffles his little eccentricities; I could allow him anything.</p><p>Even so, the hours which my associations with Raffles obliged me to keep were hardly healthy ones, and they were beginning to tell on me. I was constantly tired and sluggish; I had no energy to write any more; when I saw friends other than Raffles they told me I looked pale and out of sorts. On one occasion I actually refused Raffles's invitation to dinner at Kellner's because I did not feel up to it. I supposed, with a wry ruefulness, that these were the just deserts of unwise habits. I would feel better after a spell away from town, I thought, and began to plan a stay in some quiet suburb up the river; but somehow I never got round to anything definite.</p><p>*</p><p>
  <i>A key turned in the lock, and the door opened slowly and silently. In fact the key had not been necessary; but perhaps it was necessary to show that it was possible.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>This night was not moonlit. Low, heavy clouds intervened between the bright sky and the rooftops of London, and a thick fog was descending from them. From the bedroom window the houses of Park Lane, and the Park beyond them, were all but lost in a gloom and shadow that was only highlighted by the glow from the streetlamps. On a clear day it would have been a familiar scene; now it was all unknown.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>It was very quiet—but not quite silent. Something was moving round the end of the bed, a shadow amidst shadows. It might have been a human figure, though something about its movements seemed to argue against this interpretation; but whatever it was, it had eyes, which alone of all the things in the room were clearly visible in the darkness.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>The room seemed to grow darker yet. And the figure moved closer, up towards the bed, a deeper darkness...</i>
</p><p>*</p><p>It was about this time that, as I was shaving one morning, I noticed in the mirror a set of odd little marks, rather below my collarbone. I put the razor down and pulled aside the collar of my nightshirt for a closer look. There was a sort of small, livid bruise, and within it two tiny red scratches, almost like puncture wounds, an inch or two apart. These wounds looked quite fresh, almost as if they had been bleeding recently.</p><p>I did not know what to make of it.</p><p>*</p><p>All the while the epidemic continued unabated, and was attracting more interest than ever. One evening, while dozing in an armchair at the club, I was roused out of my lethargy for a moment by overhearing a conversation between two older members about the mystery.</p><p>'Now, I have been making discreet inquiries,' said one—he was a prominent medical man—'and I have discovered that the public have not been apprised of all the relevant information. There are things still being kept quiet.'</p><p>'Is that so?' said his companion, raising his bushy white eyebrows.</p><p>'Hmm. There are two curious pieces of information which I think particularly pertinent,' said the doctor. 'Firstly, in many cases—especially those in which the victim was a person of wealth and station—'</p><p>'As so many of them are,' interrupted the other.</p><p>'As so many of them are,' he agreed. 'Well, when, after their deaths, their belongings have been sorted through and inspected, certain objects known to have been in their possession have been missed.'</p><p>The admirable eyebrows rose still higher. 'Valuable objects?'</p><p>'Indeed. Secondly, the post-mortem examinations have of course found none of the usual physical signs of illness or injury, but there is one strange thing they have all found. You'd never guess what it is.' He lowered his voice and went on, 'They have found <i>bite marks</i> on the victims' chests—that is the only plausible description of them.'</p><p>'Like the bite of a wild animal?'</p><p>'Rather like that of a snake,' said the doctor, still speaking in an undertone. 'I told you that a canny man at Scotland Yard has become interested in the case—he makes out he's simply investigating the thefts as thefts, but really he has his own theory about it: he thinks this is no plague at all, but the work of a very clever thief and murderer, who kills his victims using some exotic venomous snake, and then takes their valuables.'</p><p>'My word.' The old man took another sip of his whisky; he looked quite pale.</p><p>'Of course,' said the doctor, sinking into a whisper, 'even this theory does not explain all the facts...'</p><p>At this point the whispers became inaudible, and I heard nothing more.</p><p>*</p><p>A few days after this I roused myself out of my late apathy for long enough to make a visit to the reading room of the British Museum. I used sometimes to go there in the old days, to write and to find those little pieces of information which I needed for my stories, and it was an odd comfort to see the place again. It seemed to throw the change in me and my circumstances—for change there had been—into sharper relief. There was no danger of Raffles calling for me in my absence, for it was early in the morning.</p><p>I inquired about two or three obscure volumes on the folklore of central and eastern Europe, whose titles I had found while searching for information about some of the things in Raffles's stories. For some time I sat at a desk, slowly turning over the pages of these books, cross-referencing between them, occasionally making notes. One of the books included an especially thorough bibliography upon the subjects it discussed, and from this I was led to a very curious collection of medical papers (so they were termed) by a Dr Martin Hesselius, published about twenty years ago. This too I obtained and read.</p><p>At length I rose, returned the books and left the Museum. They had given me much to think over, and I went slowly on the way back to my rooms, lingering along the crowded pavements of Oxford Street and watching the people who hurried by me on their various ways. It was an ordinary London scene. Two young gentlemen, men like myself, walked arm-in-arm, laughing at some joke; fashionably-dressed ladies went smartly towards the shops; a nursemaid pushed a pram, and another maidservant struggled with the leads of two boisterous dogs. A few months ago I suppose I would have felt quite at home there.</p><p>When I got back to Mount Street I found a little parcel awaiting me. This proved to contain a pair of very fine cufflinks, set with remarkable blood-red carbuncles, and a note from Raffles asking me to accept the present, which he had thought would set off my favourite suit—I knew the one he meant—so well.</p><p>For the rest of that day I did not do a great deal. I sat by the windows of my front room, watching the various goings-on below as I had watched the people in Oxford Street that morning. From time to time I took out the cufflinks and turned them over, vaguely admiring the deep colour of the stones as they caught the sunlight.</p><p>And in the evening I went to see Raffles.</p><p>'My dear Bunny! What a pleasant surprise this is; I was just thinking of going to see you myself,' he began, with all his usual brightness of air and manner, as he ushered me into the room. But my face must have shown what I was feeling, or something of it, for as soon as he looked at me his own expression changed. 'Bunny, what's the matter?' he said. 'Not more money troubles?'</p><p>'No,' I said. I hesitated for a few more moments; but there was only one thing to be done, and only one way to go about it. 'That ring—the Redruth heirloom, you remember?—you did not stumble across it in an antique shop, Raffles, as you implied. You stole it—from Henry Redruth himself.'</p><p>Raffles raised his eyebrows. 'Do you think so?' he said quietly.</p><p>'I think so,' I said, trying to sound defiant. 'It isn't the only thing you have stolen, either. The others who died of this strange disease—' And I named several more victims.</p><p>He came closer towards me; his manner had lost all its brightness, but was as cool and decisive as ever. I had to fight not to quail from the awful glitter of his blue eyes as he said, still in a soft tone, 'And what else do you think, Bunny? Do you think I merely take advantage of my victims' all being struck down by this plague, or—'</p><p>'Or?' I said, holding his gaze.</p><p>For some moments we remained in silence, not looking away. I believe we were both daring each other to be the first to say something definite. Perhaps he was really not sure; after all, I might have believed the doctor's snake theory, or some other equally ingenious and equally wrong explanation. Perhaps he would have been willing to let me go on believing it.</p><p>But I was not willing to let him stay so uncertain. In a hard voice which even as I spoke sounded cruelly unlike my usual tones, I told him of my visit to the Museum earlier that day. I named Dr Hesselius's book, and knew that he recognised the name. I told him of what those books of folklore had shown me—how I had found a complete explanation of London's recent epidemic in their accounts of the depredations made upon innocent persons by that awful revenant creature which the peasants of Styria, Moravia, Poland and such places call the <i>vampire</i>.</p><p>'The only thing missing,' I finished, 'was the jewel theft. And so how am I to account for the fact that all the things which have gone missing—and I know they have, for all that it's been hushed up by people who suspect less than I know—turn up here, in your possession?'</p><p>There was a silence lasting some moments.</p><p>'So you really do know,' said Raffles, in a strange, quiet voice. 'You do know, and this is how you react!' He actually laughed softly, and began to pace back and forth across the room. After doing so for a minute or two, during which I watched him, full of bitter anger, he went on, 'I always knew you had pluck, Bunny, but I believe I had underestimated your brains.' And this was spoken in the very tone in which, ten years earlier, he had used to praise my daring or ingenuity in helping him evade capture by the school authorities for the simpler misdeeds of those days.</p><p>'You know, Bunny,' he continued, 'it did occur to me... I was half afraid that one day I should find you here with a priest and an occultist—perhaps with Inspector Mackenzie too, and wouldn't they make an odd group!—all ready to dig up my grave, chop off my head and cast my ashes into the Thames.' It was so strange how light his voice still was, speaking such horrible words. The procedure he described was set out in the books I had read; but I had no intention of carrying it out.</p><p>'I know what you've been doing,' I said, unwilling to let him do all the interpretation. 'I've thought it all out. That day when the inspector was here, and you made me tell a lie to protect you—but more than that, I know why I couldn't remember that it <i>was</i> a lie. I know what this is.' I tore away my tie and collar, exposing the bite marks upon my chest. 'Am I to meet the same fate as the others? It would be an odd choice, Raffles, for I have nothing worth taking.'</p><p>'You have something very much worth taking,' he said, stopping his pacing and looking straight at me. 'No, Bunny, you're not like the others—don't believe it! I admit that you have given me a good alibi once or twice when I wanted it—but that isn't the real reason; it never was.' He was standing before me now, with his hands upon my shoulders; transfixed equally by the words, their tone and by the look of his eyes, I did not move away. 'Oh, I have been selfish... but it's said love is always selfish, isn't it? It was only for you that I did any of it. I wanted to take you with me—if you can believe that, Bunny.'</p><p>Strangely different images of him were flickering through my mind like pictures in a magic lantern. Was this the dear old Raffles whom I loved, or the horrible creature who had been preying so terrifyingly upon the people of London these many months? I must accept that it was. This entirely unnecessary secrecy was so like him, after all. As for the rest of it, I had always been ready to help him in any daring undertaking, criminal as it might be; and here, certainly, was a complete end to my financial troubles. If I was damned for the one thing—</p><p>'Then why not explain yourself?' I said, with a grotesquely comical impatience. 'Raffles, there's no need to be so devious about it.' And I went on in a determined voice, 'I would gladly go with you. I want to—to go with you on these—adventures, whatever you shall call them. That life in death which the books told of. And if you are selfish,' I finished, defiantly, 'then I suppose my own love is little less.'</p><p>His eyes were glittering, more brightly than diamond or ruby ever could, glittering with an awful life that was not life, and with a love that—but I did not regard it so. I never would again.</p><p>'I see I have underestimated you indeed,' he said softly. 'Well, Bunny, there's a way for that...'</p><p>He kissed me then, and I went to meet him—as I would have done from the first. The hold he had on me had not, after all, ever lessened. There was blood in my mouth...</p><p>*</p><p>It only remains for me to make clear to my readers, for their better understanding, certain facts which became plain to me later.</p><p>A. J. Raffles had indeed, as he told me, left England some years before the date of this story, and spent several years travelling. He made a complete tour of Europe, and spent some time in Australia. It was on a visit to Styria, staying in a very remote forest region with some friends who owned a sort of castle there, that he fell ill with a strange sickness; soon it became clear that there was little hope, and wishing, as he told his friends, to die in his own country, he returned to London. But when he arrived there he presented himself, for reasons of his own, under a false name. It was Mr Maturin who was buried in an obscure corner of a London cemetery, and A. J. Raffles was, as far as any of his English acquaintances knew, still somewhere off in parts unknown. Thus it was that, when he returned to another existence, he was able to do so under his own old name, without exciting any suspicion. As for the way in which he funded that existence, it was one that had always appealed to a nature which had ever been daring and attracted to adventure and risk. However much greater the risk was now, it only made for a better reward.</p><p>If my readers are at all familiar with the superstition of the vampire, they will no doubt have heard of the curious fascination—resembling, so Dr Hesselius's correspondent tells us, the passion of love—which the vampire will conceive for certain of its victims, prolonging its depredations upon them in a sort of ardent gluttony and, even while draining the life out of them, seeking from them '<i>something like sympathy and consent</i>'. In this case, I suppose that our former connection was what began it. It was a reminder of simpler times and more innocent trespasses; and so the old feeling combined with the new to produce something stronger than either. It was much the same with me.</p><p>But I do not often think of such things now. I have what I could wish for in this life—if the reader will permit the word—and so, with this, the story is told.</p><p>*</p><p>
  <i>The lights of streetlamps and windows, laid out in a sort of confused regularity far below, faded into the night. Above them, enduring and clear, were the stars, and it was their light which shone down upon this London rooftop and gave some distinctness and form to the darkness of the leads and chimney-stacks.</i>
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  <i>A shadow passed across the stars—only for a brief moment, before their bright order returned. Then the shadow was followed by another. After that nothing more came to disturb the quiet night; below, London continued on its oblivious way, and above, the cold eternal starlight shone still.</i>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Dr Hesselius's book is of course <i>In a Glass Darkly</i>, the collection in which <i>Carmilla</i> was published in 1872. Bunny briefly quotes from <i>Carmilla</i> at the end, and I've included a few paraphrases of other significant lines.</p><p>Henry Redruth's ring is modelled on <a href="http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O123342/ring-unknown/">this one from the V&amp;A Museum</a>—but I thought a blood-red stone would be more appropriate...</p></blockquote></div></div>
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